While Famous For Its Use In Movies, This Beautiful Area Is Also Known For Its Ghosts And History
When driving along Highway 395 in the California Eastern Sierras, one might stop for gas in Lone Pine and then keep driving to Mammoth or Lake Tahoe, but a side-trip to explore the Alabama Hills can be quite revealing
Pulling off the highway, the surrounding mountains and sweeping desert give way to a small plot of majestic rocks that only cover a couple of square miles of the area.
With more than 30,000 acres of hills filled with desert brush, the rounded contours of the Alabama Hills form a sharp contrast between the glacially chiseled ridges of the Sierra Nevada.
“This place is magical and has so much history,” said Lee Morgan, a movie historian from Los Angeles. “The scenery in the Alabama Hills is nothing like anyplace else around. That’s why the movie directors are still coming out here. The scenery can be used from everything to a desert to planet Mars.”
The area can be not only fascinating to check out the huge jumbled rocks, which can be climbed and hiked on, but also to seek out the ghosts of old cowboy actors that still linger in the high desert.
With more than 30,000 acres of hills filled with desert brush, the rounded contours of the Alabama Hills form a sharp contrast between the glacially chiseled ridges of the Sierra Nevada.
“This leads the viewer to believe the Alabama's are almost antique in nature,” said Lone Pine geologist Randy Meyers. “Actually, both geologic features were the result of uplifting that occurred 100 million years ago. The hills have been subject to a type of erosion known as chemical weathering. When the hills were still covered with soil, percolating water rounded the granite blocks and sculpted the outstanding formations you see today.”
The recreation area, owned by the BLM, is located in the shadow of Mt Whitney, the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States. Mt. Whitney towers several thousand feet above this low range, which itself is 1,500 feet above the floor of Owens Valley. However, gravity surveys indicate that the Owens Valley is filled with about 10,000 feet of sediment. The movie directors however likely did not know that when they drove the 200 miles from Los Angeles. The area was host to a din of old cowboy movies classics including Gunga Din, Yellow Sky, and How the West was Won, which were filmed at sites now known as "Movie Flats"
Other more recent films shot in the area featuring this unusual desert backdrop include Star Trek Generations, Gladiator and Iron Man as well as Django Unchained.
According to the Museum of Western Film History , the hills were named after the C.S.S. Alabama, a Confederate warship responsible for wreaking havoc during the Civil War. Prospectors sympathetic to the Confederate cause named their mining claims after the Alabama and eventually the name stuck.
The well-maintained dirt road in Alabama Hills is about a 12-mile loop that even a mini-van can navigate which winds and around some of the greatest rock formations. Picking up a small booklet at the Lone Pine Chamber Of Commerce can reveal spots not on the beaten path. The ghosts of the filmed past including that of movie stars such as John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Kevin Costner and Demi Moore while hiking. Nothing is marked, so the booklet comes in handy.
“The hills have seen some of the greatest actors of the day,” Morgan said. “I wonder how many of them came back to hike or seek out some rest and quiet, away from the Hollywood lifestyle?”
Candice Reed
A graduate of Kelsey-Jenny College in Communications as well as a certified grant writer, Candice has written for The Los Angeles Times & The New York Times. She loves entertaining and all things French.
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Campgrounds of Inyo County, offering outdoor recreation by providing and maintaining 15 parks and campgrounds. All of the County operated campgrounds include flowing creeks in a rustic setting to enhance the camping experience.